Travel chaos as easyJet and British Airways cancel hundreds of flights

easyJet and British Airways are among the UK airlines forced to cancel flights due to high levels of Covid-19 sickness among staff, bringing chaos to the Easter holiday exodus.

easyJet has cancelled more than 200 flights since Friday because of staff absences. British Airways has cancelled about 100 flights, with the flag carrier aiming to restrict cancellations to high-frequency routes such as Paris, Berlin and Barcelona.

An easyJet spokesperson said: "As a result of the current high rates of Covid infections across Europe, like all businesses easyJet is experiencing higher than usual levels of employee sickness.

"We have made 62 pre-emptive cancellations for flights to and from the UK for [Monday] which represents a small proportion of [Monday's] total flying programme which was planned to be more than 1,645 flights. We cancelled the majority of these [on Saturday]."

Data from the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) last week suggested that as many as one in every 13 people in the UK were infected by the virus, a record level.
"We're not immune to it - like any other business," said a spokesperson for British Airways.

Some holidaymakers have been stranded abroad or taking an alternative route home offered by the airline.

It comes after passengers were stuck in long queues at Heathrow airport on Sunday morning as the Easter holidays got under way. The airport attributed the congestion to Covid checks required by destination countries and "high passenger volumes".